The present invention relates to catheter designs.
Catheters are used in medical applications to introduce fluids into the body. A variety of catheter designs have been used and are well-known. Typically, catheters are flexible, tube-like structures having a single opening called a lumen. Multiple lumen catheters are also known.
Various designs have been used heretofore to provide a soft tip on catheters in order to help prevent the catheter from puncturing a vessel during vascular insertion. Typically, a soft material is bonded onto the tip of a catheter by some suitable method, i.e. using an adhesive or an ultrasonic bond. A soft tip can also be made part of the catheter by an insertion molding process or by a tapered co-extrusion process. Problems with the soft-tipped catheters heretofore known involve the risk that the soft tip, being a separate part, would fall off. That is particularly important in applications where the tip might be subjected to high fluid pressure. As is well known, if a tip falls off a catheter, causing arterial blockage, extensive surgery is required to retrieve the tip.